The present invention relates to compositions and methods useful for removing acrylic-based polymer materials, such as acrylic-based polymers useful as enteric coatings, from vessels and other equipment employed in using such materials.
Acrylic-based polymer or polymeric materials have found substantial acceptance as enteric coatings, for example, to protect the stomach from various medications and/or vis versa. For example, such coatings can be used on aspirin-containing medications to insure that the stomach is not exposed to the aspirin. The coating is insoluble in stomach acid and dissolves only after the medication passes to that portion of the gastrointestinal tract beyond the stomach in which the pH is neutral or alkaline. These enteric coatings, which are known to be soluble based upon the pH of the medium in which they are placed, are produced using conventional coating equipment.
Over a period of time, the coating equipment and associated equipment, such as vessels, piping and the like, become heavily coated with such acrylic-based polymer material. Periodically, this process equipment must be cleaned in order to perform effectively. In particular, the coating material must be removed from the surfaces of the equipment in order that the equipment can perform its function effectively and efficiently. In addition, because the equipment is often used in the pharmaceutical and/or food industries, the cleaning operation itself must be effective to remove all of the coating material, and must be approved, for example, by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for use in the pharmaceutical and/or food industries. Such cleaning operations should also be cost effective.
Prior cleaning operations have involved manually scraping the acrylic-based polymer material from the process equipment. Also, very high concentrations of organic solvents have been employed to remove such material. These prior cleaning approaches are labor intensive and/or are expensive from the standpoint of cleaning composition cost and/or employ materials which are not approved for use in the pharmaceutical and/or food industries.
It would be advantageous to provide compositions and methods for removing such acrylic-based polymer materials from process equipment which are effective and efficient in removing the materials, and/or are cost effective, and/or use cleaning materials which are approved for use in the pharmaceutical and food industries.